Symantec Dissolves a Chinese Alliance‎

Less than four years after Huawei Technologies and Symantec teamed up to develop computer network security products, the joint venture is being dismantled because Symantec feared the alliance with the Chinese company would prevent it from obtaining United States government classified information about cyberthreats.

According to two people briefed on the deal, Symantec’s decision was a pre-emptive political maneuver timed to coincide with the United States government’s efforts to share more classified cyberthreat information with the private sector. People with knowledge of the venture, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, said Huawei had already laid off several workers in Huawei Symantec’s Silicon Valley offices this month and planned to move its entire operation out of the United States, largely because of increased American government oversight.

In the next two weeks, Symantec, the Mountain View, Calif., computer security software firm, is expected to sell its 49 percent stake in the venture to Huawei for $530 million. The companies first announced the sale last November. In a news release, Enrique Salem, Symantec’s chief executive, said the project had “achieved the objectives we set four years ago” and would “exit the joint venture with a good return on our investment.”

Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/technology/symantec-dissolves-alliance-with-huawei-of-china.html